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Archive for the 'Mike Scioscia' Category

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Coaching staff will return intact

November 19th, 2009, 11:47 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

One day after Mike Scioscia was recognized as the American League Manager of the Year for 2009, the Angels announced that his coaching staff will return intact for the 2010 season.

Hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, first-base coach Alfredo Griffiin and bench coach Ron Roenicke have been on the Angels’ major-league staff since Scioscia was hired in Nov. 1999.

Third-base coach Dino Ebel was promoted to the major-league staff after Joe Maddon left to become manager of the Tampa Bay Rays before the 2006 season. Pitching coach Mike Butcher joined the staff in 2007 after Bud Black left to become manager of the San Diego Padres. Bullpen coach Orlando Mercado has been in the Angels’ organization for 16 years and will be starting his eighth season on the major-league staff. Bullpen catcher Steve Soliz will begin his eighth season in that role.

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Selig: ‘Mike Scioscia … was right’ on playoffs

November 18th, 2009, 9:35 pm by Earl Bloom, staff writer

Win two American League Manager of the Year awards, and you can influence important people, too.

Instantly, it seems.

Commissioner Bud Selig said Wednesday that Major League baseball will heed Angels manager Mike Scioscia’s advice (it was more like constructive criticism), and tighten up the baseball playoffs with fewer off days.

That might mean a pitching-deep, regular-season team might actually have an advantage. I think there’s one of those in Anaheim, too.

Posted in: Mike Scioscia • | 1 Comment »

Scioscia to Selig: Tighten up the playoffs

November 18th, 2009, 12:33 pm by Mark Whicker, ocregister.com

Angels manager Mike Scioscia said Wednesday he hasn’t forgotten about the tedious nature of the postseason schedule and had spoken with commissioner Bud Selig about his concerns.

Scioscia called it “ridiculous,” during the ALCS, for the Angels to have played only eight games in 21 days.

“I’m very hopeful the commissioner is gong to consider tightening up the schedule,” Scioscia said, as he was named American League Manager of the Year.

“You run the risk of a bad weather situation when you play the World Series in November.”

Scioscia’s first priority would be to do away with the two, and sometimes three, off-days that follow the final game of the regular season. Back when Scioscia played, the postseason began on Tuesday after the 162nd game was played on Sunday.

Of course, baseball would have to make accommodatons for rained-out games and also tiebreaker games to decide division titles.

“It’s not right that a team can reset its starting rotaton no matter how much difficulty they had winning the division,” Scioscia said. “Absolutely that would be the first thing they could do.”

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Scioscia wins Manager of Year award

November 18th, 2009, 11:08 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

Mike Scioscia has won the BBWAA’s Manager of the Year Award for the second time in his 10 seasons as manager of the Angels.

Scioscia received 15 of the 28 first-place votes to win the American League award for 2009. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was second with six first-place votes followed by Yankees manager Joe Girardi (four), first-year Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu (two) and Rangers manager Ron Washington (one).

Scioscia also won the award in 2002 when he led the Angels to their only World Series title.

This year’s honor follows a season that saw him pilot the Angels through difficult times — the April death of Nick Adenhart and a long list of key injuries — to win the A.L. West title for the fifth time in the past six seasons. Scioscia is the first manager in baseball history to lead his team to the post-season in six of his first 10 seasons.

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Bloggers like Mike

November 17th, 2009, 5:42 pm by Mark Whicker, ocregister.com

I don’t know how I missed this. but on Nov. 9 the Sports Bloggers’ Nation came out with its American League Manager of the Year poll, , and SBN says Mike Scioscia is the winner. On Wednesday, the BBWAA concurred and gave Scioscia his second such award.

"that was strike 4"

"that was strike 4"

There were two voters from one AL blog per city, presumably, and they voted for three managers, just as the writers do.

 

1. Scioscia, 72 (9-8-3)
2. Ron Gardenhire, 61 (9-5-1)

3. Don Wakamatsu, 47(6-3-8)

4. Joe Girardi, 24 (2-4-2)

5. Ron Washington, 21 (1-4-4)

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Posted in: Francisco Rodriguez • Mark Teixeira • Mike Scioscia | 2 Comments »

Next week’s BBWAA awards schedule

November 13th, 2009, 8:40 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

Baseball’s major awards will be announced beginning next week (with Mike Scioscia the frontrunner for A.L. Manager of the Year).

Here is the schedule (with announcements coming approximately 11 a.m. PT each day):

MONDAY – AL & NL Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Awards

TUESDAY – AL Cy Young Award

WEDNESDAY – AL & NL Manager of the Year Awards

THURSDAY – NL Cy Young Award

FRIDAY – AL Most Valuable Player Award

TUESDAY (Nov. 24) – NL Most Valuable Player Award

Posted in: Mike Scioscia | Post a Comment »

This winter will be a season of change for the Angels

November 2nd, 2009, 11:37 am by Earl Bloom, staff writer

Some observations, and questions that I hope will be answered during this baseball winter ….

– The Angels outfield/designated hitter spots will look different in 2010. Torii Hunter will be in center, and Juan Rivera will play left — and likely, DH more.91788303NM090_New_York_Yank

But Vladimir Guerrero and Bobby Abreu will be free agents, and Gary Matthews Jr. has asked out. Unfortunately, at this point the most likely one of the three to be on the Angels in 2010 is Matthews.

– Chone Figgins’ free agency likely opens up third base for Brandon Wood. Here’s hoping that means a full spring training, and then several months’ commitment to let Wood settle in. He won’t get a season-plus like Mike Schmidt did, but that was a long time ago.

– Scot Shields’ return to health should be an enormous boost for the bullpen. So would a decision to not retire by Darren Oliver. And Brian Fuentes, the most-maligned 50-save reliever in major-league history, will know the American League hitters better this time around.

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Posted in: Angels • Bobby Abreu • Brandon Wood • Brian Fuentes • Chone Figgins • Darren Oliver • Erick Aybar • Ervin Santana • Gary Matthews • Howie Kendrick • Jered Weaver • Joe Saunders • Juan Rivera • Mike Scioscia • Reggie Willits • Scot Shields • Scott Boras • Scott Kazmir • Tony Reagins • Torii Hunter • Vladimir Guerrero • • • • • | 7 Comments »

Where does Wood fit in 2010 plans?

October 28th, 2009, 10:58 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

ANAHEIM

The coming of Brandon Wood has been foretold in story and blog for years now (but not song yet, I don’t think). Earlier this season, Angels manager Mike Scioscia and GM Tony Reagins each had the same thing to say — that Wood’s “time” would come … but it wasn’t here quite yet.

Wood (still only 24 after a third season split between Triple-A and the majors) reaches a crossroads this winter. While the potential for change in the Angels’ roster this off-season is great, Wood is out of minor-league options — which means he cannot be sent to the minors next season without clearing waivers first (highly unlikely).

So where does Wood fit in the Angels’ plans for next season?

“We’ve internally talked about this for a long time. I’m sure there’s a decision that has to be made with a lot of guys,” Scioscia said Tuesday. “He’s absolutely ready for the opportunity much like Kendry Morales was.

“Now I’m not saying he’s going to put up Kendry’s numbers. But as far as where he is and what he’s going to accomplish playing at a level outside the major leagues is not going to move his career forward. … Just because you’re ready for the challenge doesn’t mean you’re going to jump in and hit 34 bombs and drive in 105 runs or whatever (as Morales did in his first full major-league season). That’s not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is right now he’s ready for that challenge.

“The next growth stage is going to be major-league experience for this guy and eventually he might be like Howie (Kendrick) — struggle, figure it out and take off. He might be like (Erick) Aybar — play okay, figure it out and get to your level. Maybe he’s like Kendry Morales and, boom, it clicks and he does what Kendry did. We don’t know. We don’t have a crystal ball. But right now he’s not going to get any better outside of seeing major-league pitching and starting to adjust from that. So, yeah, he’s ready for that challenge. But there’s a lot of things obviously moving forward this winter that are out of his control.”

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Posted in: Angels • Bobby Abreu • Brandon Wood • Chone Figgins • Juan Rivera • Kendry Morales • Mike Scioscia • Uncategorized | 26 Comments »

Game 6 lineups look familiar

October 25th, 2009, 3:55 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

NEW YORK

Given a night to sleep on their lineup decisions, neither manager veered from the plan he had yesterday before the rains came.

For Angels manager Mike Scioscia, that meant another vote of confidence for slumping leadoff man Chone Figgins.

“There’s as much negative that can happen when you try to rework a lineup as positive things that can happen,” Scioscia said. “At times when you go through a rough spell and a guy is comfortable in a spot and knows what his role is — I think more times than not, you’re better off playing it out and seeing if a guy can’t get into his game and start to contribute.

“Putting some guys who maybe the comfort level is not there and maybe they try to get out of their game and (you) end up having lessened yourself in a couple of spots as opposed to the one guy you’re trying to fix.”

Elimination-game lineups:

ANGELS

3B Chone Figgins (2 for 30 in the post-season)

RF Bobby Abreu (3 for 21 in the ALCS)

CF Torii Hunter

DH Vladimir Guerrero (team-high 11 hits in post-season)

1B Kendry Morales (team-high seven RBI in post-season)

2B Howie Kendrick

LF Juan Rivera

C   Jeff Mathis (6 for 10 in ALCS)

SS Erick Aybar (check out the haircut)

LHP Joe Saunders

YANKEES

SS Derek Jeter

LF Johnny Damon

1B Mark Teixeira (6 for 35 in post-season)

3B Alex Rodriguez (slugging .967 in post-season)

C  Jorge Posada

DH Hideki Matsui

2B Robinson Cano

RF Nick Swisher (3 for 29 in post-season)

CF Melky Cabrera

LHP Andy Pettitte

Posted in: Angels • Bobby Abreu • Chone Figgins • Erick Aybar • Howie Kendrick • Jeff Mathis • Joe Saunders • Juan Rivera • Kendry Morales • Mark Teixeira • Mike Scioscia • New York Yankees • Torii Hunter • Vladimir Guerrero | Post a Comment »

Would rain help Angels’ cause?

October 24th, 2009, 8:35 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

lackey-and-scioscia

 

Angels manager Mike Scioscia took the ball away from John Lackey in the seventh inning of Game 5 Thursday – but he could hand it to him for a Game 7 if weather affects the weekend schedule.

The forecast for Saturday is warmer than Games 1 and 2 in New York (with temperatures in the low 60s at game time) but there is an 80 percent chance of rain during Game 6.

If the game has to be postponed until Sunday and the Angels win to force a delayed Game 7 on Monday, it would give the Angels the option of starting Lackey in Game 7 on short rest.

“We talked about a lot of different scenarios,” Scioscia said Friday. “I think we’re going to let this thing unfold a little bit and see how the weekend goes.

“If there is an opportunity to look at bringing a guy like John back, it’s something we would certainly consider.”

The Angels decided against bringing Lackey back on short rest to pitch both Games 1 and 4 (as the Yankees did — to great effect — with CC Sabathia), preferring to use the depth they believe they have in their rotation. That didn’t work out so well. Scott Kazmir did not pitch well in Game 4.

An elimination-game scenario would present a different set of circumstances.

By the way, the win in Game 5 means the Angels are now 6-7 in elimination games in their post-season history (5-4 with Scioscia as manager).
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Posted in: Angels • John Lackey • Mike Scioscia • New York Yankees | Post a Comment »

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